It will be remembered as the year when past geniuses (The Coen Brothers, Sidney Lumet) made astounding comebacks, while others (Francis Ford Coppola) merely continued to slip and stumble. It will be the time when the ongoing writer’s strike threatened to close down the industry come Summer blockbuster time – or destroy the union in the process. The typical topic areas – family dysfunction, crime and punishment – found new and novel ways of expressing their ancient Greek drama dynamics, and blood flowed freely from barber’s razors and a despotic oil baron’s temperament. All in all, 2007 was an astounding year in film. Too bad we’re about to look at this baby’s messy, muck filled diaper.
Many of the nominees for the year’s worst derive their awfulness from a purposeful demographic pose. Apparently, making entertainment for the underage crowd gives Hollywood hacks a creativity migraine. At least half of the movies that made the list are pre/post tween terrors, geared so far down on the intellectual paradigm that they battle the Earth’s magnetic core for control of its gravitational pull. The rest of the dross is derived from unfunny comedies, unexciting thrillers, and the kind of sickening schmaltz that leaves many a viewer in a cinematic sugar coma. While direct to DVD offerings can be far, far worse (look here for some incredible foul examples), you’d think a major mainstream corporate media giant would know better. Looking at the 10 worst films of 2007, that’s clearly not the case, beginning with:
#10 – Hitman
Hitman overstays its welcome from the moment the ammunition starts flying, and never finds a satisfying way of winning us back. It’s dry and dour, so full of itself that you’d swear it was a college athlete. In a genre not known for its subtlety, cinematic tact, innovation (unless you’re John Woo), or lack of contrivance, this vacant videogame adaptation is a barely passable poster child. You’d figure a movie with such a title should revel in its gory, gratuitous killings. Sadly, the filmmakers don’t comprehend the fun in firepower. Instead, they keep pushing things into political intrigue mode – and in these days of uncertain international ideology, a From Russia with Love storyline feels so Tom Clancy.
#9 – Underdog
Underdog is so piecemeal it should come with a roll of duct tape. It’s so desperate to be everything to everyone that it ends up being very little to nobody in particular. Scripted by a committee that obviously didn’t contain a logician, a comedian, or someone adept at characterization, what we wind up with is a one trick dog and pony show without the little horse. It’s hard to figure out what’s more insulting about this post-millennial live action update – the way it talks down to, and then plays perfunctorily to, its intended audience, or the opening credits callback to the original series, complete with material showing the classic cartoon icons we’ve come to know and love.
#8 – Shrek The Third
Though it tries to deliver something new this third time around, the truth is that this tired tre-quels narrative more or less sits there, lifeless and limp, waiting for the already creaky cogs in its comedy machine to make up for the lack of complexity. Indeed, this type of clothesline yarn is ripe for many a hilarious animated set piece, but the quartet of screenwriters can find very little to do with it. Indeed, lame rap lingo and prevalent pop culture references that seemed to work before now come off as amateurish and pat. Even the standard star stunt casting has been lowered a couple of notches, resulting in good but generic voices looking to enliven things. They don’t.
#7 – Mr. Bean’s Holiday
Physical comedy is officially dead, and Rowan Atkinson killed it. Well, not the actor himself, but his inexcusable desire to keep destroying the reputation of his resplendent Mr. Bean with all manner of mediocre motion picture incarnations. That sunny British series was a class act of timing and treatment. Now, on celluloid for a second time, it’s nothing more than crass kid fodder, a G-rated response to the parental cries of media inappropriateness. Once he was a mean spirited plank who saw the entire world as worthy of his slightly askew scorn. But now he’s been transformed into a gangly, goofball Gamera, friend to everyone except the sideswiped member of the audience who didn’t see such a tiresome trainwreck coming.
#6 – The Heartbreak Kid 2007
This is a disaster, an unmitigated humorless horror that never once plays as raunchy or as outrageous as it thinks it is. Realizing that their patented gross out scheme has long been usurped by others more adept at said scatology (read: Judd Apatow), the Farrelly Brothers have managed to make the worst film of their careers – and that’s saying a lot. Using extremes like excuses and shouting where a script should be, this guaranteed to please the least demanding of audiences atrocity is a perfect illustration for why Mr. Freaks and Geeks and his party posse had to step in and save cinematic comedy. Without their Superbad life support, an effort like this would have been fatal.
#5 – August Rush
Heavy-handed, undeniably saccharine, and about as magical as a clown at a kid’s party, August Rush is an implausible, pus-covered pixie stick. It’s Oliver without the twist, a well-meaning lament fashioned out of arrogance, artificiality, and artlessness. This ‘adult fairytale’ is one of those films that announces its archetypal intentions from the very start. It salutes you with schmaltz and then turns up the convolutions until the clichés no longer have room to breath. Eventually, they die off in waves of unexplored potentiality, resulting in a literal ghost of a film. There are times when this maudlin muck is so lightweight and wispy, we fear a sudden sneeze from the audience will cause the screen to go blank.
#4 – I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry
No one in Hollywood ever went broke underestimating the entertainment taste of the American public. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry is proof of such a sentiment. Geared directly toward the lowest common denominator, with occasional side treks into PC-lite pronouncements of tolerance and acceptance, this is comedy as callous homophobia. In a current social climate where same sex marriage has been bandied about as a powerful political and pundit tool, to treat the issue as the basis for a frat house level of funny business is disturbing. But then to watch as the plot purposefully backtracks in order to make amends for such lampoon-based insensitivity is disingenuous at best.
#3 – Mr. Woodcock
With the proper, no holds barred approach melded with a mean-spirited, manipulative script, this could have worked. But because of a preemptive PG-13 mandate from the studio, and a lack of any real intelligence or insight, this potential testosterone-laced standoff ends up a panty waisted wuss-out. It’s not just that the film is painfully unfunny – it fails to even understand why its jokes don’t begin to work. Had the movie spent more time in the setup, showing John Farley as a sad little boy in a constant war with the evil and uncouth PE pig, any payoff would have some context. But all we get are lame ‘lame’ kid riffs, followed by more dull Wood-cockiness.
#2 – Alvin and the Chipmunks
Alvin and the Chipmunks is, what we call in the profession, a “-less” film. This means it’s point-less, joy-less, soul-less, and worth-less. It is nothing more than an excuse for overpaid computer geeks to render quasi-realistic wildlife. While it only plays the fart and poop card once each, this is still a juvenile effort helmed by individuals who should really know ‘funny’ better. Substituting stupidity for smarts and silliness for satire, we wind up with the kind of mindless box office babysitter that lets inattentive parents feel safe about dragging their kids to the Cineplex. And with box office grosses well beyond $100 million, it’s clear that many are taking the ersatz au pair bait.
#1 – Norbit
Like a Jerry Lewis vehicle gone gangrenous, Norbit is a nauseating mess. It finds Eddie Murphy once again treading water, working within the same lame stunt gimmickry that resuscitated his lagging star quality some 11 years ago. Back then, his multi-character turn in The Nutty Professor actually had some intelligence and humorous heft (excuse the pun) behind it. The remake of the classic farce contained heart, insight, and just a smattering of the scatological material that usually mires most post-modern comedies. But by the time the inevitable sequel came along, the crappy Klumps proved that the ‘man of many make-ups’ conceit had really run its course.
Now, seven scattered years later, Murphy is back under latex and foam, reduced to race baiting and egregious ethnic slurs for his supposed satiric insight. Norbit is so bereft of laughs that it actually owes the cosmos a couple dozen cleverness IOUs. What passes for jokes are obvious swipes on color, creed, and context, and the physical slapstick is so outrageously amplified that it plays like a metaphysical Merrie Melody on massive stupidity steroids. From the opening moment where an infant is randomly tossed out of a car, to the sequence where the rotund Rasputia gets scrimshawed in the blowhole (don’t ask), the basic brutality and aggressive abuse garners little except contempt.